Let's see some different J-Music rankings 2019 issued from the Oricon charts. It is complementary to the singles download ranking and Billboard Hot100 charts, and to my article about the 70th Kouhaku (soon available), the musical show of the NHK which sums up on its own way the ending year.2019 was struck by several blasting news, starting with the announcement by Arashi of their coming retirement. A scandal in the NGT48, a sister band of AKB48, additionally broke the momentum of the main band with regards to the 46 bands, and Twice (who already ejected E-girls from the Kouhaku). Even the zen and romantic world of enka-kayoukyoku, whose "Prince" Hikawa Kiyoshi was starting celebrating his 20 years of career, was not spared, with the eviction of a member of Junretsu for domestic violences!

The yearly Singles Charts of the Oricon are, due to the inner nature of the accounting (physical sales) and of the market (collection-addicts and / or voting vouchers for one's favorite Idols...), largely trusted by female Idols bands (mostly from AKS agency) and male ones (from Johnny's).

One this site, we will rather check the main sales data, to see how is the Japanese music market in 2019, then we will see the Albums and Enka rankings, more representative.

The winning podium is made of, like the previous year, the Idols AKB48, who place Sustainable (1 400 000 units) and Jiwaru Days (1 300 000) at the first two places, and the Nogizaka46 with Sing Out! (1 200 000). However it is even more a token win for the AKB against their "official rivals" as they only released these 2 singles this year, a first low in history. Moreover they lost visibility with the end of several broadcast and, stupor, the cancellation of their usual general election. It had bad consequences on Jiwaru Days which was supposed to contain the voting vouchers! This comes probably from the management reorganization problems, following the aggression of a member from the sister band NGT48, but also from a constant loss of momentum with regards to the 46 bands or TWICE. Speaking of it, let's congratulate the nice performance of the brand new band Hinatazaka46 who places 3 singles between the 8th and the 10th positions!

On the male Idols side, Arashi restores the hierarchy among the Johnny's, after their announcement in early 2019 of their coming retirement, with BRAVE in 7th place, but they are beaten by BTS'sK-Pop(6th).

As we will see in the detailed ranking below, the Idols are less hegemonic but stay well in the top of the chart: Arashi and their Best of as a farewell counts over 2 millions units, which garnted them a Global Album award from IFPI, while their spiritual heirs King & Prince shortly outrun the Nogizaka46 at some more usual sale levels (550 000 vs 510 000).1st non-Idol, Hoshino Gen arrives 4th with Corona... oops, Pop Virus 😅

DVD and BRD podiums are entirely males, Arashi dominating both, above King & Prince ranking 2nd and 3rd respectively. Johnny'sHey!Say!JUMP and Kanjani8 are completing.On the EXILE Tribe side, Generations are on top ranking 7th in DVD, before EXILE. On the AKS' girls' side, tops are the Keyakizaka46, and only Nogizaka46 appear too in the BRD top 25.Apart from Idols or dance troops, the J-Rock duo B'z reaches very good rankings, in the top 10 with a live from 2018. One can also find Hoshino Gen or also One OK Rock.

Apart of the first 4 I told about in intro, one notes an enormous presence of the K-Pop band including 2 Japanese, TWICE (5 albums ranked!). While excepting Nogizaka46, it's a desert among the Idols of Akimoto! Johnny's are equally present in the whole chart.

The band Official Higedandism (J-Pop poprock) who gained fame on that year get a very good rank for their album released only in October. Aimyon appears too in the top 20 after her 1st Kouhaku in 2018. For King Gnu, other revelation 2019 more J-Rock, they will probably have to wait for the effect of their invitation to the Kouhaku 2019 and the release of an album in January 2020 to see them in this ranking.

They follow an experimented J-Rock and poprock quartet between the 11th and the 7th places, in the vicinity of the prestigious OST of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.

2 "comebacks": Yazawa Eikichi and Takeuchi Maria. This 1st one, old-style rocker who inspired not less than Onizuka Eikichi in the anime GTO, got helped by the media coverage of a... female imitator with an inimitable voice, Ringo-chan (りんごちゃん) for his 1st original album for long. Takeuchi Maria gets advantage of the revival of her pop song Love plastic last year to launch her compilation celebrating her 40 years of career.

On the anison side, the main point is the once again excellent OST by Radwimps, still for a Shinkai Makoto animation movie, Weathering with you. Less known but nearly as well ranked, mafumafu is a singer-songwriter, in particular for the duo After the Rain, who recently worked on Pokémon, Detective Conan and To the abandoned sacred beasts.

HypnosisMic, theIkemen "2.5D" rappers launched on the previous year, confirm their trend, with even a first live and several ranking units (15th, 32th, 38th)! It looks like they are mainly surfing on the growing interest from young Japanese ladies for the nice voices of the male seiyuu in anime (maybe I should give a try :p...), nevertheless they hire rap pros for their songwriting.

Quite in the same style, but of younger or kawaii appearance, Sutopuri aka Strawberry Prince put their 1st album 25th! Older, Urashima Sakata Sen surf too this same wave ^^

Let's end with a bunch of Best of some big artists in quite various genres: the electro-pop of Perfume, the J-Rock fusion of Sheena Ringo, the J-Pop-rock of Aiko and the pop-folk ballads of Kubokuro...

Ce classement permet de compendre les invitations au fameux Kôhaku de la NHK, et de savoir ce qui passe chez les Japonais plus âgés ou plus romantiques.This chart is provided by the specialized TV channel Kayou Pops, who extracts the more traditional tracks, Enka and Kayoukyoku, from the abysses of the Oricon data 😅 (I'm a bit kidding as the n°1 of this ranking is 49th in the Singles Oricon).This ranking permits to understand the invitations to the famous NHK's Kouhaku, and to know what is in the air among the elder or more romantic Japanese people.

Once again, the "Prince of Enka" Hikawa Kiyoshi ranks n°1 of the Top Enka-Kayou, which corresponds to the 49th place of the general Top Oricon singles.The Top 10 is quasi-exclusively made of Kouhaku's usual guests, one of the rare large-audience TV show to give time to this genre.Junretsu well survived the scandal of domestic violence which led them to exclude one of their member in January 2019. Takeshima Hiroshi realises again a great perf with his kayoukyoku, still without appearing in the Kouhaku.Mori Konomi, 30, slips out of the Top 10 but had a nice coverage by marrying a... sumo! Tatsumi Yuuto and NakazawaTakuya, both under 25, could constitute the future of enka.